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Development of a Protocol for the Karst Water Source Protection Zoning: Application to the Classical Karst Region (NE Italy and SW Slovenia)

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Abstract

Although karst aquifers are highly vulnerable and represent an important water resource, they are often inadequately protected. Furthermore, national water resource protection policies lack precision regarding the criteria for delimitation of source protection zones in karst. Usually either vulnerability assessment or travel time is considered. The proposed integrated protocol considers both. It is specifically designed for large karst aquifers where i) an additional distinction between areas of different liability to contamination within the aquifer, and ii) a certain generalisation of protection classes should be made for practical reasons. The protocol includes a detailed description of the separate steps of the protection zoning procedure. Information obtained from both artificial and natural tracers is used to account for the variability of groundwater flow under different hydrologic conditions. Analysis of groundwater physico-chemical parameters time series is better employed under high flow regimes and analysis of artificial tracers breakthrough curves under low flow conditions. Source protection zones are divided into three levels of protection, which should be further generalised, validated and adjusted to land use plans. The protocol has been applied to the Classical Karst Region transboundary aquifer (NE Italy and SW Slovenia). The results enable a uniform delineation of protection zones encompassing water sources that have not been protected to date, and improve the understanding and management of transboundary aquifers. The proposed protocol can be used in other karst aquifers, and adjusted to national protection legislation and spatial planning frameworks.

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Acknowledgments

This study was carried out within the HYDROKARST project financed by the European Regional Development Fund (Cross-border Cooperation Operational Programme Italy–Slovenia 2007–2013), the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Italian Republic, the Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy of the Republic of Slovenia, and the P6―0119 Karst Research Programme of the Slovenian Research Agency.

S. Biolchi provided the merged vectorial geological map, F. Treu and S. Cleva the pre-treated land-use data. F. Treu supplied the merged DEM. C. Calligaris helped with the tracer test bibliography. J. Kogovšek contributed to the project results. The Agenzia regionale per lo sviluppo rurale (ERSA, Pozzuolo del Friuli) and the Center za pedologijo in varstvo okolja, Biotehniška fakulteta (Ljubljana) provided the vectorial soil maps. Thanks to the Geological Survey of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, AcegasApsAmga S.p.A. and Kraški vodovod Sežana d.o.o. for their long-standing collaboration.

Thanks to G. Crevatin, W. Boschin, E. Zavagno, B. Grillo, L. Visintini and G. Casagrande for the maintenance of the CTD monitoring network. Two anonymous reviewers helped to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Geological Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Weiss, 2, 34128, Trieste, Italy

    Philippe Turpaud, Luca Zini & Franco Cucchi

  2. Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU, Titov trg 2, SI-6230, Postojna, Slovenia

    Nataša Ravbar & Metka Petrič

  3. UNESCO Chair on Karst Education, University of Nova Gorica, Glavni trg 8, SI-5271, Vipava, Slovenia

    Nataša Ravbar & Metka Petrič

  4. Geological Survey of Slovenia, Dimičeva ulica 14, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Janko Urbanc

Authors
  1. Philippe Turpaud
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  2. Luca Zini
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  3. Nataša Ravbar
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  4. Franco Cucchi
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Correspondence to Philippe Turpaud.

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Electronic supplementary material

Online resource 1

List and description of the main data required by the proposed protocol (XLSX 9 kb)

Online resource 2

List and description of the main data used in this study (XLSX 10 kb)

Online resource 3

O, C, P and K factor maps obtained using the Slovene Approach (Ravbar and Goldscheider 2007). The maps served as a basis for the source vulnerability assessment (GIF 212 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 11825 kb)

Online resource 4

DEM map of the study area (after Cucchi et al. 2015) (GIF 307 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 13043 kb)

Online resource 5

Land Use map of the study area (after Cucchi et al. 2015). Data from http://irdat.regione.fvg.it and http://rkg.gov.si/GERK/viewer.jsp (GIF 339 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 13045 kb)

Online resource 6

Vegetation density map elaborated from Land Use map (Online resource 5) (GIF 345 kb)

High resolution image (TIFF 13373 kb)

Online resource 7

Name, coordinates (WGS84) and measurement period of rain gauge stations (XLSX 10 kb)

Online resource 8

Apparent flow velocities calculated by the time-lag determination of T and EC breakthrough curves. The corresponding daily discharges at Cerkvenikov Mlin are shown (XLS 39 kb)

Online resource 9

Apparent flow velocities obtained by tracer tests along the considered paths. The corresponding daily discharges at Cerkvenikov Mlin are shown (XLS 39 kb)

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Turpaud, P., Zini, L., Ravbar, N. et al. Development of a Protocol for the Karst Water Source Protection Zoning: Application to the Classical Karst Region (NE Italy and SW Slovenia). Water Resour Manage 32, 1953–1968 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1882-4

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